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Shows that fewer than half of facial arteries follow textbook paths, highlighting critical anatomical variations relevant for aesthetic filler injections and reconstructive surgery.
BACKGROUND: The facial artery is said to be the main vessel for the blood supply of the anterior face. However, its course is quite often not as described in the textbooks. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to find out the different courses of the facial artery, its anastomoses, and its position in relation to the fat compartments of the face. MATERIALS AND METHODS: With 60 hemifaces three-dimensional reconstructions with computed tomography, cross dissections and horizontal sections were performed. RESULTS: Of note, 4 types of facial arteries were identified. Not even half of the specimens showed a textbook course of the facial artery and only a quarter of the specimens had a textbook course of the artery on both sides. CONCLUSION: To know the different appearances of the facial artery can be helpful for filler injection in aesthetic medicine but also for planning flaps in reconstructive surgery.
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Pilsl et al. (2016) studied this question.
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